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Ruslan Tsarni, Uncle on suspects: 'Losers'

A man who said he’s the uncle of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings said the men brought “shame” to the family and the Chechen people, and stressed that their motives had nothing to do with religion.

“They put that shame on the entire ethnicity,” said Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle of two suspects who were named overnight.

“Being losers,” Tsarni said, when asked why his nephews might have bombed the marathon. “Hatred to those who were able to settle themselves. These are the only reasons I can imagine. Anything else to do with religion, with Islam — it’s a fraud, it’s a fake.”

Tsarni, speaking at a televised press news conference, said he had not seen the suspects in years, but said they must have become “radicalized.” He called on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to turn himself in.

“If you are alive, turn yourself in and ask forgiveness from the victims, from the injured. … ask forgiveness from these people,” he said, when asked whether he had a message for his surviving nephew. He added, “He put a shame, he put a shame on the … family. He put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity.”

Tsarni, who offered condolences to the victims and expressed his shock, also expounded on his own family’s love for America.

“I teach my children, and that’s what I feel myself … [I] respect this country, I love this country, this country, which gives the chance to everybody else to be treated like a human being.”

“The last time in 2009, maybe, the last time and that was in 2009, when I spoke with Tamerlan,” he said, noting that the suspects have been in the country for about a decade. “I was asking what he was doing and he started telling me about the, some that he’s been in Islam. I told him, listen. Islam [has] always been there. You just do your business. Work. Go to school. Be useful. Know why you came to America.”